Monkbam Pro Audio Marketing Blog

An old engineer (who was a complete dick) at an unnamed Boston-area recording studio once said to me, “The best thing you can do is be a music slut and spend your life at the local dives getting to know musicians.” I kinda doubted him way back in the day, but thought there might be a bit of truth there.  Why not focus on the music instead? Spend time on your craft rather than sloshing around until 3 am every morning?

Well, it turns out that he was right. Music is as much about art as it is about relationships. Few people ever call direct attention to this, but a producer or engineer really is the fifth Beatle. Think about it – would you let anyone into your band? Would you let anyone do whatever they wanted with your music? Hopefully you can see why relationships are so important in recording studios, because it is never only about the music. It’s about a mixture of trust, competency, and vibe.

In light of this, that engineer was right. In order to get started, you have to be more than a bit of a slut. That helps with the point # 1 – you have to start somewhere. Note that traditional marketing and advertising aren’t going to be great friends at this point. Of course, they rarely hurt if done well, but you should be building your site, looking forward to the next installment of how to leverage the influence all of these new friends, right?

First though, why aren’t marketing and advertising very useful now? It’s rather simple. You don’t have much to sell that is noteworthy or unique.

It’s now very easy to

• sound like you can sing when you can’t and
• make your basement studio look pretty spectacular on the web

I have nothing against basement studios – I ran one for years and it was quite profitable and a lot of fun. I found the advertising part of the studio world to be a challenge, so I am going to spend a few posts on the vagaries of running this kind of enterprise from the bowels of your abode.

What Musicians Want to Know

Most musicians don’t give a shit about your individual drums and drum heads, your Peavey Classic 30, or your selection of prosumer microphones. Don’t waste space telling them about it. If you’ve got a U47, a C12, etc, then great. Spend a bit of time telling them about your difficult choice of whether to buy a new Bimmer or three microphones, but don’t do it on the homepage. That’s not primarily why they are there.

Musicians usually want to work with certain producers or engineers for three reasons:

1. They know you, or they know people who know you
2. They have heard a piece of music you’ve worked on or they know people who have heard about you
3. They are completely ill-informed and will take the first bit of bacon thrown at them

If you agree with my reasoning, then you’ll see that gear often has little to do with a musician’s choice to work with you or use your studio. They have a personal connection with you or your work, or you’re their most convenient choice. Technicalities like gear don’t matter to them.

I’ll focus on making three articles centered around the three points of how people will find you. #1 coming next…